James Madison and the problem of 21st century skills: A problem solving exercise

[John Lee]

James Madison, the father of the Constitution, was a world class problem solver. One of the great problems of his day was the issue of how to make democracy work in practice. That was no small task. No democracy had (previous to the 1780s) been successful. The problems besting democracy were multiple. As Madison put it in Federalist #10, "Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."

The problem of factions stood out for Madison as one particularly vexing impediment to a successful democracy. To resolve this problem, Madison suggested a delicately balanced representative democracy. He lays out the solution in Federalist #10 ( a primary source presentation of Federalist #10). The fix for Madison privileged liberty and diversity of thought while guarding against the narrow self-interests of factions. The resulting system of government, while sometimes frustratingly deliberate, safeguards the people from the passions of individuals, small groups and even majorities that do not have the interest of the whole in mind.

How did Madison solve his problem? Ultimately, he solved it by striking that delicate balance. But, the balance was weighed given an overwhelming priority to preserve liberty. What can we learn from Madison's approach to problem solving, and how can this be applied to the problem of 21st century skills?

First, let's look at the the problem of 21st century skills. A growing chorus of critics are suggesting that 21st century skills, specifically those skills put forward by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills are doubly flawed. First, the skills framework lacks a grounding in academic content. Second, many of the skills put forward in the 21st century skills framework are either faddish or redundant expressions of skills already long valued in existing academic frameworks for knowledge.

• Video on The National Summit on 21st Century Skills from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (2009) \

• Highlights from a Common Core Conference on 21st century skills

The P21 Skills framework includes the following skills, supported by academic content, all as illustrated in the graphic below.

1. Learning and Innovation Skills (including creativity and innovation / critical thinking and problem solving / communication and collaboration)

3. Information, Media and Technology Skills (including information literacy, media literacy, and ICT literacy)

4. Life and Career Skills

Let's look at the second issue first, that of fads and redundancy. Much on the list above looks familiar. Critical thinking and problem solving as well as learning skills and career skills are staples in most academic and professional preparation programs. Innovation skills and creativity might qualify as faddish. Overall the critiques do not necessarily diminish the importance of the skills framework. In fact, we might argue that any new framework for learning should include elements of what exists along with some new ideas.

The first of the criticisms of 21st century skills is a bit more difficult to counter. The lack of academic content embedded in the skills has been the main line of critique for Common Core. Diane Ravitch, a Trustee at Common Cause sums up the critique. "We have neglected to teach them that one cannot think critically unless one has quite a lot of knowledge to think about. One thinks critically by comparing and contrasting and synthesizing what one has learned. One must know a great deal before she or he can begin to reflect on its meaning and look for alternative explanations."


So, how might Madison, the compromiser and solver of problems, approach this problem. First, he might wish to preserve some immutable idea, namely content. After all, the process of learning is devoted to content. We must learn something. Whether its a skill, an idea, or a discrete piece of information, the something that we learn in the process of teaching and learning is essential. The debate over what we learn (skills or content) is mostly false. In the spirit of Madison, I would suggest that there is another issue that is truly at the root of any disagreement about 21st century skills. It is not what we learn, but how we learn it. We might think of the what and how of learning as Madison's "causes" and "effects." As explained in Federalist #10, Madison viewed any effort to control the causes of instability and "evils" in democracy as more dangerous that the actual problem. Instead, Madison attacked the effects of democracy. In our problem with 21st century skills, the degradation of content, or the what we learn, is more problematic that anything gained from pushing forward new ways of thinking. So, instead we should focus how we learn. Ultimately, this a pedagogical question that requires a very careful weaving of content (both academic and skills content) and pedagogical intent.

Here is a thought exercise. How can we learn (a pedagogy) about academic content, specifically Madison's explanation of representative government in Federalist Paper #10, using the 21st century skill of creativity?

My approach - the text, a camera, and 60 minutes. The results.to come...

...a couple of hours later (another hour to edit!)

Our video


Find more videos like this on New Literacies Collaborative

[Aaron Munz]

OK, I finally joined the New Literacy blog and can respond to the class video project from last week. I think that recording and editing student responses to a historic primary source can be one technique to connect with young people. I was more intrigued with the process than with our actual responses to James Madison's Federalist Paper on the advantages of a republic over a democracy. The process of asking each of us to focus on an Idea, an Insight, an Interpretation and a Consequence of Madison's writing was an effective technique to achieve the desired soundbites for the resulting video. This is definitely a project/ technique that I will use as a high school teacher.

[Charley Norkus]

Some great thoughts, Robert. My experience teaching high school US History has been similar to what you've encountered - students acting as if hearing the content for the first time. I would widen your definition of 'content' to include more than just data - dates, events, etc - to include the 'story' of history, and one can fall in love with that kind of content, and remember it, but I get your bigger points re: how vital it is that students develop conceptual understandings. Considering this plus Dr Lee's question of addressing the challenge of deep content and technology, I believe both must become like "windows" through which students "see." We don't think about how to operate a window, we just naturally look through it, and our technology should be so friendly as to allow us within a reasonable time to utilize technology with the same ease. With access to and manipulation of deep content, we should be thinking not of how to access so much as how to re-present, so that we are creating our learning rather than just ingesting someone else's instruction.

[Kyle Moore]

This activity was a nice change of pace, from the regular work done in classes. Hopefully the future activities will keep the class just as engrossed.

The problem with many assignments today, is that they're too limiting. They require a paper, a poster board or a presentation of either one of those. Hands on approaches have always seemed to work best for myself and many others I've come across. Teachers are suppose to encourage a students abilities and help them progress, or find new talents they didn't know they had. Instead of requiring a paper, require them to bring in something creative. That could be anything from a piece of artwork, a sculpture, a digital image, photograph, a poem, short story or they could even dress up as an individual/time period they researched. But that itself is too limiting, anything that I've listed are just ideas, anything the student can think of which is creative, and requires work on their part, could be a proper piece of work to turn in. A presentation of the material could then be required, forcing them to explain their findings and why they incorporated the facts their did into their project. This would give them research, public speaking and creative thinking experience.

Students are capable of more than we give them credit for, and limiting them only hinders their progress.

[Robert Coven]

Content (data) and skills are but two elements of education. Understanding requires a grasp of underlying concepts. Without paying attention to the creation of a conceptual framework, students are left to drown in a sea of undifferentiated and seemingly infinite information. Hirsch and Ravitch would like to present students with a shared canon of historical content. Beyond the difficulty of finding a common canon—an ongoing debate fraught with political and cultural issues—there is the question of efficacy.

By the time students have graduated from high school, they have had three or more iterations of American history. Yet they remember almost nothing and find themselves, in the freshman survey, reading and hearing the same information as though for the first time.

Information does not stick unless students can make their own connections and place the data on a self-constructed framework. As such, the real question for 21st –century learning is: How do we help students develop these intellectual armatures?

As to the teaching of skills, these should be taught in tandem with, but not in service to technology. The analytical, writing, rhetorical, and research skills of a good scholar do not change very much. They are pretty much the same now as they were in the 19th century. What do change, with increasing frequency, are the tools employed.

By focusing on tools and content, we make history into a mechanical pursuit better left to machines. Historians and educators should focus on conceptual understanding and the honing of skills.

[David Moseley]

The video that resulted from our activity was exactly the kind of product that can be produced by students if they are given the chance to integrate technology in learning. Students are aware of the fact that there is more involved in 21st century life than reading and writing an essay. Those are still important skills, but they do not constitute a complete education.

One obvious hurdle for many educators in secondary education to duplicate this exercise is the lack of availability of technology. Schools are moving in the direction of becoming more technology-oriented, but that is not the only thing that separates this exercise from the standard curriculum. It takes the content and encourages students to reflect on the thoughts expressed, not just reiterate the words written. That is the real key to find ways to get the students to use the kind of intellectual abilities that will make them the innovators of the 21st century.

Since the goal is to build off of the foundation of content, it can never be sacrificed in the name of progressive thinking. An exercise that could help to dig into content while broadening the approach might be something like a series of blog entries from the perspective of a historical figure. The blogs could only be written after research and reading of the time period in focus. One example figure might be a Civil War soldier, women’s rights activist or Progressive era child worker. This kind of thing connects the students empathetically with the figures that they write from the perspective of, while learning about the historical context in which they lived.

[Jason Bolchalk]

I really do not want to sound like a broken record, but this activity was rather fun and really enjoyable. Being a teacher in the classroom in today's schools, I am always looking for new and exciting assignments that will grab and hold students attention. Sitting and taking notes and then regurgitating those notes back out during a test or quiz does not excite students about learning. I have found that my students learn best when they make connections to the material they are working with. An assignment like this that applies some of these 21st century skills is a great way for students to master not only the content they are studying, but also modern mediums that they will need to get ahead in the future.

When dealing with such topics as ancient Egypt or other cultures where students tend to shut down at just the thought of something ancient, 21st century skills would be very helpful. I like to have my students recreate certain aspects of these cultures through the use of new technologies. For instance, when discussing the pyramids of ancient Egypt, half of my students would learn very little about the process of constructing these monuments through pictures or descriptions. So I have them research about the materials that were used and the mathematics that were involved in the creation. We then use sources from libraries in Egypt and archives from archaeologists that give them specific information into the process. Using this knowledge, the students are then put in charge of building their own pyramids using such mediums as marshmallows, sugar cubes or any other material they can think of while completing their research. Without the use of technology and the ability to use the technology, it may just be another lesson that that forget about all too soon.

In essence, 21st century skills are very beneficial if used correctly. I think we are in an age where our students could probably teach US more about technology than we could teach them. So why not use what they know and what they are comfortable with to enhance their understanding of history?

[Charley Norkus]

If I could add another word on this, McGraw-Hill's Valery Levy made an excellent point that reinforces my last comment: She said that because of increasing globalization, today's students as tomorrow's job seekers are competing against not only people in this country but with people from all over the world. Reminded me of Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat in how today, thanks to vastly improved communication networks, it is becoming so much easier to have customers and co-workers who are physically located oceans away yet doing business with us as if they were in the next office down the hall or even in the same room with us.

[Charley Norkus]

Creating the video was a pretty cool way to mesh a primary source study with 21st century skills, using a simple yet very effective medium, the digital camera. (I want to learn how to merge all of those separate files into one video.) After viewing it, I thought a little further: maybe the safety provided by the size of our republic - safety as was stated from being taken over by any particular special interest - maybe, that safety in size has been offset by the absence of term limitations. A group representing a particular interest can pour money into few key office holders, financing their campaigns in various ways, providing perks, etc., and those politicians can push and protect the agenda of the special interest, at least that's what to me appears to have happened. When I think of 21st century skills - since it doesn't say "21st century technology skills - I think of not only the ability to be proficient in the many new ways of communicating, seeking, acquiring, and creating new information... I also think about other affective skills that will be needed in the 21st century: the ability to get along well with others, to be teachable, and to adapt well to change. These skills are certainly not new - every generation has needed them - but it may be that in the 21st century these types of skills will be called on more often than ever before just because of the exponentially growing tidal wave of information with which we are bombarded every day... thus the emphasis on making sure that today's young people have grasped both the technical and the affective skills they will be called upon to use more and more.

[John Jackson]

Projects like this video are great tools for making history interesting for students. Your average middle or highschool student isn't going to be particularly interested in reading and interpreting a document written by an 18th century politician, then typing up a book report. Students today have grown up in a fast-paced digital era where everything is technology based. Information is just one click away. If educators can incoporate technology into their classrooms without compromising deep content, then you have a winning formula.

One idea that I think would be interesting for a project incorporating 21st century skills and content, would be to have students create a facebook page for a particular historical figure. It combines popular culture with academics, and I believe students would find this more interesting than your average book report. Students would research the interests, beliefs, biographical information. etc. of their assigned subject. They could even post "notes" and give status updates. Museums have already started projects similar to this. The Massacusetts Historical Society has created a twitter account for John Quincy Adams...

http://www.masshist.org/adams/jqa.php

[Shannon Hines]

I must say that I can understand the school of thought that does not think that 21st Century Skills are a new concept. It is more of an evolution of thought and technology that takes concepts that have been used throughout time to their current level. To assign the term new to such skills, to myself, infers that students have not had to critically think or collaborate with others, for example, in the study of content. The skills have always been there, it is the technology that is used with these recurring skills that has created changes in how students and teachers cover the core material.

Technological advances in communication and computers have taken classrooms into the world stage. Through these advances students have been able to get a firsthand look at events that are happening all over the world without leaving their classroom. When used correctly, core content is enhanced not diluted by this addition. By being able to hear and see an event or talk to a person that has lived an experience you can create an element of reality that is not found in a textbook. Technology has been able to give the students more power in their own hands as they discovery history.

The task at hand is how to use the deep content to develop the 21st century skills that students will need once they are past needing to know, for example, who the 19th President of the United States was. (It was Rutherford B. Hayes, just in case you did not know.) The content is the medium in which the skill are developed and enhanced. It is your job as a teacher to allow students to question what was and try to perceive what it was like in the past. Technology just gives you the recourses to present information in a more interactive and real time manner to keep students interested so they want to question and learn more.